The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-05-12
HIS LAST WORDS.

HIS LAST WORDS.
The following article, from the pen of
the late Henry Ward Beecher, was writ.
ten by him only a fortnight previous to
his death. He had promised that he
would contribute an article to the last
number of the Brooklyn Magazine under
its old name, and, true to his word, the
paper given below was written in the
last days of his life. The paper will be
printed in the April number of the mag
azine:
"Old age has the foundation of its joy
or its sorrow laid in youth. Every stone
laid in the foundation takes hold Of
every stone in the wall up to the very
caves of the building, and every deed,
right or wrong, that tsanspires in youth,
reaches toward, and has relation to, all
the after part of mans life. A mans
life is not like the contiguous cells in
bees honeycomb; it is more like the
separate parts of plant which unfolds
out of itself, every part bearing relation
to all that antecede. That which one
does in youth is tho root, and all the
afterparts, middle age and old age, are
the branches and the fruit, whose char.
acter the root will determine.
EVERY man belongs to an economy in
which he has right to calculate. or his
friends for him, on eighty years as a fair
term of life. His body is placed in q
world adapted to nourish and protect it.
Nature is congenial. There are elements
of mischief in it if man pleases to find
them out. A man can wear his body out
as quickly as he pieases, destroy it if he
will; but, after all, the great laws Of na'
ture are nourishing laws, and, compre-
prehensively regarded, nature is the uni.
versal nurse, the universal physician of
our race guarding us against evil, warn
ing US of it by iqcipient pains, setting up
signals of danger-not outwardly, but
inwardly-and cautloning us by sorrows
and by pains for our benefit.
1MMoDERATE PASSIONS.
Eyeyv immoderate draft which is made
by the appetites and passions is so much
sent forward to be cashed in old age.
We may sin at one end, but God takes it
of at the other. Every man has stored up
for him some eighty years, if he knows
how to keep them, and those eighty
years, like bank of deposit, are full OF
treasures; but youth, through ignorance
or through immoderate passions, is wont
continually to draw checks on old age.
Men do not suppose that they are doing
it, although told that The wicked shall
not live out halftheir days.
Men are accustomed to look upon the
e1cesses of youth as something that
belongs to that time. They say that Of
course the young, like colts unbridled,
will disport themselves. There is NO
harm in colts disporting themselves, but
colt never gets drunk. I do not object
to any amount Of gayety or vivacily that
lies within the bounds of ,eason or ol
health; but I reject and abhor, as
worthy to be stigmatized as dishonorable
and unmanly, every such course in youth
as takes away strength, vigor, and purity
from old age. Every man that trans
ceuds natures laws in youth is taking
beforehand those treasures that are
stored up for his old age; he is taking
the food that should have been his susie.
nance in old age, and exhausting it in
riotous living in his youth. Mere gayety
and exhilaration are wholesome; they
violate no law, moral or physical.
EXCESS IN YOUTH.
do not object to ninth or gayety, but
do object to any mans making an ami.
NAL of himself by living for the gratifca-
ton of his own animal passions. People
frequently think that 10 require in the
conduct of youth that which we expect
in later life has something of puritanisn
in it. Men have an impression that
youth is very much like wine, crude and
insipid until it has fermented; but when
it has fermented, and thrown down the
lees, and the scum has been drawn of,
the great body between is sound and
wholesome and beautiful.
am not one that thinks 80.
think that youth is the beginning Of
the plant life, and that every wart OF
excresence il so much enfeeblement oi
its fruit.bearing power. I do not believe
that any man is the better for having
learned the whole career of drunkenness
and lust, or the dallyinga or indulgencieE
that belong to morbid life. A young
man that has gone through these things
may be saved at last, but in after life be
has not the sensibility, nor the purity
nor the moral stamina that he ought tt
have. He has gone through an expert
ence but for which his manhood would
have been both stronger and nobler
Excess in youth, in regard to ANNA
indulgence, is bankruptcy in old age.
For this reason l deprecate late hours
irregular hours or irregular sleep. Peo
pie ask me frequently, "Do you think
that there is any harm in daucing?'
No, I do not. There is much good in it
Do you, then, object to dancing parties
No, in themselves I do not. But wher'
unknit youth, unripe muscles, unsettled
and unhardened nerves are put through
an excess of excitement, treated will
'stimulants, fed irregularly and will
unwholesome food, surrounded will
gayety which is excessive and which il
pro.racted through hours when the,
should be asleep, I do object.
NO HARM IN DANCING.
MI -, th<, J,oo;no ;foo1f